Electric City Film Fest & Expo to Honor Broadcasting Pioneers

The 5th Annual Electric City Film Fest & Expo sponsored by the Schenectady Film Commission and Proctor’s Theater will honor four early pioneers of broadcasting on September 26th during the 5th Annual Film Fest & Expo to be held at Proctor’s GE Theater from 4PM to 10PM.

WGY was the first to present drama on radio with the WGY Players during the 1920s. Photo courtesy Schenectady Museum.

Dorothy Sweeney first began working as a soundman with WGY in Schenectady in 1941 when she was a teenager. In this golden age of radio, WGY was one of the premier radio stations in the United States. While there, she worked principally on THE FBI IN ACTION, and the FM PLAYHOUSE. Hired as a wartime replacement, she worked doing sounds effects at WOR in NYC from January 1944 to June 1946. While at WOR she produced sound effects for several national programs on the Mutual Broadcasting System, some of which were: Nick Carter, Master Detective, The Mysterious Traveler, and The Sealed Book. She also occasionally did sound for The SHADOW, SUPERMAN, and others.

Dorothy Sweeney's (right) early days made her one of the original sound effects experts. Photo courtesy Schenectady Museum.

Margaret “Peg” Miller, a native of Schenectady, N.Y., produced sound effects for The FBI in Action from 1944 until the show’s demise in the early 1950s. She started WGY as a program assistant for the Program Dept and shared an office with Earl Pudney. Earl convinced Peg to take over the sound effects position for FBI in Action when the previous person left and she stayed there until the show was over 9 years later. She also sang on some of the shows and appeared with Gordie Randall’s band.

Amsterdam Evening Recorder, Wednesday June 10, 1931.

Ned Spain played organ on the original Earl Pudney show on WRGB, which aired 1958-1967. Ned began his musical background during his service in the U.S. Marine Corps. The start of his playing career came about with the installation of a Hammond Organ in the theater at his duty station. Prior to this, his only exposure to the organ had been sitting next to the organ console in church, observing the organist’s every move. Within two weeks, he was performing every night before the movies to a full house of servicemen, playing entirely by ear.

Upon discharge, Ned began his playing career performing in upscale hotel cocktail lounges and restaurants in the Capital District, Saratoga Springs and Lake George resort areas of New York. About that time, the very popular Earle Pudney Show was on Channel 6, featuring piano and organ duets. Just as the old show business adage goes, the featured organist took sick and Ned was in the right place at the right time, replacing him on the show. David Allen, the host of a daily quiz show at the same TV station heard Ned and hired him to be staff organist, leading to a twenty year run on TV. During this period he accompanied many famous singers including Johnny Ray, Sergio Franchi, Jerry Vale, Gordon Mac Rae and opened for Pat Boone.

For 25 years, Ned has been organist at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady, New York, performing on Goldy, a 1931 Wurlitzer pipe organ. In addition to playing concerts, he demonstrates the organ during the public tours of the theater. His most memorable performance was a piano and organ duo concert with the late great Ashley Miller of Radio City Music Hall fame, performed at Proctor’s. For ten years, Ned played summer concerts on the historic 1840 Ferris pipe organ at Round Lake Auditorium, an early 19th century Methodist campground meeting hall. He currently performs throughout the Eastern United States.

Ned Spain today still at the organ. Courtesy Ned Spain.

Ned was owner of a piano and organ dealership in Albany for 25 years representing Hammond Organs, Allen organs and Steinway pianos. He currently manufactures an accessory for portable keyboards that he invented called Creepnomore. Ned is a former Commercial Helicopter Pilot, and collects antique cars.

Ernie Tetrault has been an active broadcaster in the Capital Region for more than sixty years. Starting in the early 40’s, Ernie appeared in dramatic programs on WTRY, Troy, directed by Mildred Joseph then a student at Russell Sage College. At about the same time Tetrault began his love affair with flight—taking flying lessons at Troy airport that were paid for by his job as a shoe clerk. After a two year stint in the Navy Air Corps program at St. Lawrence University and Cornell, Tetrault was hired by WTRY as a part time staff announcer. Between station breaks and commercials, Tetrault did his homework as a nighttime student at Siena College where he graduated in 1951. Tetrault became a licensed pilot later on and was one of the founders of the Empire State Air Museum in Glenville

Ernie! Courtesy Ernie Tetrault.

Tetrault made an important career move in 1951, from radio to television at pioneer station WRGB, Schenectady, NY. In those early years at WRGB, Ernie hosted an early morning show called “Home Fare”, a local version of the NBC “Today Show.” He was the commercial announcer for the “Teen Age Barn” and many other local programs. In the Seventies, Ernie moved into the newsroom. One of his early assignments was a trip to South Viet Nam where he interviewed many local servicemen. In 1988, one of the highlights of his work on WRGB’s evening news was a much heralded series on the homeless in the Capital Region. Tetrault assumed the role of a homeless man and lived on the streets of Albany unrecognized by the thousands of pedestrians who watched him deliver the news each night. Followed by hidden cameras, he brought into the viewers living rooms and, more importantly, into their hearts and minds, reports of the reality of the daily struggle of the homeless for survival.

Events of the early 1990 have provided an opportunity for this dedicated news anchor to be the first local television newsperson to fly with the American troops to Saudi Arabia. There he reported first hand on film and by satellite on Capital region resident’s involvement in the Gulf War. The series later became a popular special telecast during prime time.

Tetrault was born in Watervliet, New York, grew up in Troy, and is one of Catholic Central High School’s outstanding alumni. He served in the Naval Air Corps during World War II. He graduated from Siena College in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English. He and his wife Ann are the parents of two grown children and the proud grandparents of an eleven-year-old girl. They make their home in Niskayuna.

In 1993 Ernie was the Commencement Speaker at St. Rose College where he received the degree of Doctor of Humane letters. The degree award read in part as follows: “During your almost half century career, you have broadened our horizons, and prodded our consciences. You are an inspiration to those who aspire to follow in your footsteps”.

Since retiring from WRGB in 1993 Ernie has kept busy serving on TV as an advocate for the hearing impaired. In addition he produced special programming on Public Access to bring public attention to the plight of Jack Carroll a Troy man Tetrault believes was railroaded to prison for more than ten years by former Rensselaer County DA Patricia DeAngelis. Tetrault believes Carroll was innocent, as did Schenectady Gazette Columnist Carl Strock who wrote hundreds of stories call in for Carroll’s release.

Peg Miller often sang with the Gordy Randall Broadcasting Band, the official band of the WGY Players. Photo courtesy Laura Lee Scott. Laura's step father is playing the vibraphone.

Clips of some of the radio shows that Miller and Sweeney did and some early video of Ernie interviewing Eleanor Roosevelt and Ginger Rogers will be featured.

The 5th Annual Electric City Film Fest & Expo will showcase locally made independent films. In addition producer and filmmaker Paul Golding will speak about the early days of film school with George Lucas. The Schenectady Museum will be demonstrating the Palaphotophone, the GE invention that allowed the use of audio of film.

Tickets are $15 and available at Proctor’s in person or online.

Don Rittner

10 Responses

On the personal front, I especially applaud the inclusion of Ernie Tetrault, the textbook “consummate pro” as a broadcaster … and an ever gracious and classy gentleman, both on-camera and off-. Not to mention a constant inspiration to this writer.

Yes, Ernie Tetrault was–and is–a gentleman. Ernie is also a TV pioneer of more than local significance. He should be remembered as long as the medium exists.
Does anyone recall a group called “Gary Stevens and the After-six Seven?”

I apologize for the impression my previous comment’s wording may have unconsciously engendered. No “lead-in” was intended. The first two sentences weren’t “teasers.” I probably should have isolated the last sentence by double-spacing. It was simply an afterthought; a question that suddenly occurred to me.
Am almost positive Ernie Tetrault was not a member of this group.
Understand, Don, I am straining the memory banks, here. (My family acquired a television set in 1949, when I was 7-years-old.) As I recall, Gary Stevens and his merry band were a goofy bunch of guys who had, somehow, talked their way into being granted airtime for the playing of pretty pedestrian after-dinner music. That, unfortunately, is the extent of my knowledge on the subject.

What about the 15-minute commercial–a “program” sponsored by M. Solomon Furs–which consisted of a series of various women merely modeling Solomon’s exclusive wares?

Sunnie Bates had a distinguished career as a pioneer in television, her husband said, but she also was a lifelong advocate for women’s rights.
“She was very politically savvy,” said husband Woody Bates of Roswell, a retired vice president with the Coca-Cola Co.
Mr. Bates noted his wife’s 50-year involvement with the League of Women Voters, serving on local and state boards in New York, Connecticut and Georgia. She was active recently, both nationally and in Georgia, with political action committees dedicated to electing Democratic women.
“She had a lot of passion for politics,” longtime friend Keiko Butler of Roswell said.
Mrs. Bates wanted to make sure others voted, so she regularly volunteered as a poll worker, her friend said.
Even when the weather was cold, the octogenarian, whose left arm was paralyzed due to cancer treatments in the early 1970s, didn’t mind working long hours at the polls, Mrs. Butler said.
Mary Elizabeth “Sunnie” Bates died July 10 of heart failure while under hospice care at her home in Roswell. She was 84. A memorial service is being planned for early September, her husband said. Wages and Sons Funeral Home and Crematories was in charge of arrangements.
Mrs. Bates was born and educated in Roanoke, Va., where she graduated from William Fleming High School and Roanoke College.
She was nicknamed “Sunnie” early in life because of her cheerful disposition, her husband said.
Mrs. Bates had numerous jobs in her early adult years, but her consistent political activism led to a career in broadcasting in the 1950s and early ’60s, according to her husband.
He said his wife co-produced a daily television news show for WRGB in Schenectady, N.Y.
In 1960, she was presented with the McCall’s Gold Mike — the highest honor given to a female broadcaster at the time — by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, Mr. Bates said.
She kept a framed photo of that presentation, and other photos of herself with notable celebrities and political figures, such as Nancy and Ronald Reagan, in her home, her husband said.
Mrs. Bates left her television career in 1962 to move to Atlanta and get married.
In Atlanta Mrs. Bates continued her involvement with the League of Women Voters, and was also a founding member and former executive director of Atlanta Planned Parenthood.
Later in life, her interests focused on Japan. The Bateses visited the country numerous times, and were active with the Japanese community in Georgia. They formerly lived in a traditional Sukiya-styled Japanese home in Buckhead that was filled with Japanese artifacts and a collection of more than 5,000 books on Japan, friends and family said.
Mrs. Bates was an early member of a conversation group formed to help young Japanese women adjust to American culture, said Josephine Maloney of Dunwoody, who started the group in 1991.
Mrs. Bates also took Japanese language classes at Georgia Perimeter College, Mrs. Maloney said.
“She knew about Japanese culture in depth and was very passionate about it,” said Mrs. Butler, also a member of the group.
Other survivors include a daughter, Jill Jennings of Woodstock; three sons, Jack Jennings of Valley Village, Calif., Geoffrey Bates of Chicago and Christopher Bates of Taipei, Taiwan; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.